Michigan football: J.J. McCarthy will have to shine against TCU

Michigan football is just over a week away from taking on the TCU Horned Frogs in the College Football Playoff semifinal in Arizona.

Every team and coach in the country knows that Michigan’s offense is primed around running the football effectively, but what has been on display the last half of the season is how well quarterback J.J. McCarthy can throw the football.

In the absence of no. 1 running back Blake Corum (season-ending injury), McCarthy has stepped up as a veteran quarterback would. In the last three games, McCarthy has thrown for 632 yards and six touchdowns, only throwing one interception. He also ran for a touchdown during that stretch.

J.J. McCarthy will need to shine again against TCU for Michigan football to win

TCU head coach Sonny Dykes appeared on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” on Thursday to talk about the season the Horned Frogs have had as well as give some insight into the semifinal game against Michigan.

Here is some of what Sonny Dykes said to Colin Cowherd in the interview.

"They’ve got a really good offensive line, I think it is the strength of their football team. They’re big up front on both lines of scrimmage. They’ve got three tight ends that can jump into some 13 personnel.They’ll play with six or seven different offensive linemen at times. You can tell that they want to run the ball. Their quarterback has really played well, he has made a bunch of big plays for them. But they’re a football team that wants to run (the ball).They do a really nice job of staying patient with the run game, they can push people around. That is going to be the big challenge for us (TCU), stopping the run and make the quarterback beat us and he is certainly capable of doing it, but we have to stop the run because that stops their offense."

It is clear that TCU’s plan is to stop the run and make J.J. McCarthy throw the ball down the field to win the game. That plan is easier said than done though as every opponent has tried to do the same thing against the Maize and Blue all season long.

Michigan football will rely on running back Donovan Edwards to carry the bulk of the carries out of the backfield and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some designed runs for McCarthy as well.

But in order for Michigan to beat TCU and move on to the National Championship game, J.J. McCarthy is going to have to make some throws downfield as he did against Ohio State.